I'll Drink to That
by Jade Sabre
Summary: For tumblr user bettydice, "a fic about the Dragon Age 2 crew just being the best buds they are."


**Title:** I'll Drink to That  
**Author: **Jade Sabre  
**Notes:** Written for tumblr user bettydice on the occasion of her winning my follower fic giveaway contest. She asked for something involving the Dragon Age 2 gang hanging out being themselves, and lo I have somehow produced three thousand words of it, set early in Act 2. After a brief consideration of how this would go with my Hawke (namely, poorly), I have borrowed an iteration of Quark's Eppie Hawke. Thanks for following me, Betty, and I hope you enjoy!

* * *

"I really don't know why I let you talk me into coming here," Aveline said, gamely allowing Hawke to take her hand to drag her the last few steps into the Hanged Man.

"Because you need to have fun, and you know it," Hawke replied, taking a deep whiff of the tavern's familiar stench. Since moving to Hightown, she'd found herself _missing_ Lowtown, though she knew it didn't make any sense; she certainly didn't miss being Gamlen's roommate, or having to scrounge for work, or waking up to a prostitute and her customer in the alley by Gamlen's house. And she didn't _really_ miss the piss and ale and foundry dust clogging the air, but as she beamed at the Hanged Man's oblivious patrons, she did have to give Lowtown credit for being much more..._lively_ than her new home.

"Perhaps, but probably not two days into my new position," Aveline said in token protest, as Hawke waved vigorously at Varric, who'd refused to allow the new guard captain into his rooms "until I know her policies on publishing" but had been gracious enough to secure them a corner table. "Do you have any idea the backlog that Jeven let pile up—"

"No idea," Hawke said cheerfully as they edged their way around the bar towards the dwarf, "and I don't want to hear any more about it tonight. Tonight, we celebrate!"

"A celebration? What are we celebrating? Why wasn't I invited?" Isabela slinked an arm around Hawke's shoulders, then noticed Aveline. "Oh. One of _her_ parties."

"Of course you're invited," Hawke said, pretending not to notice Aveline's pursed lips. "You helped, after all."

"I did, didn't I?" Isabela said. "Sounds like the new guard captain owes me a drink."

"Over my dead—"

"Varric!" Hawke said, dragging both women to the table. "Thanks for waiting for us."

The dwarf took one look at the three women and held up his hands. "This table is neutral territory," he said. "Lawwoman and pirate queen have no meaning here."

"What about mercenary-turned-respectable-businesswoman?" Hawke asked as Aveline side-eyed a smirking Isabela.

"Depends on if she's buying," Varric said, and Hawke laughed and waved at Norah.

"The first round, sure," she said, settling into the chair across from him as Isabela and Aveline sat as far apart as possible. "No Bianca tonight?"

"I'm afraid not," he said, leaning back in his seat. "She strained her trigger and needs to rest. She sends her apologies and best wishes," he added, nodding to Aveline.

"Oh," Aveline said, trying a smile beneath eyebrows creased in confusion.

"Just say thank you," Hawke whispered.

"Thank you," Aveline said, glancing at Hawke with the same expression.

"Don't worry," Isabela said, as Norah brought the first round of drinks, "we won't tell Bianca about your rudeness."

"What a relief," Aveline said, though she seemed more relieved about hiding her face behind her mug.

"Your ears are pink," Hawke whispered.

"Yes, thank you," Aveline hissed back. "I don't under—"

"I can hear everything you're saying," Varric said.

"A toast, then!" Hawke said, as the pink ears turned more maroon. "To our new—"

"Is that Merrill?" Isabela asked, languidly stretching and pointing in the general direction of the door.

Hawke turned and squinted—not that that really helped her see over the other patrons' heads—but a lilting call of her name answered Isabela's question. "Merrill!" she called back, waving her hand, and in a moment Merrill's familiar tattooed face appeared at their table, pigtails bobbing, expression triumphant.

"Oh! Hello everyone," she said, perching on the table between Varric and Isabela. "I did it!"

"Did what, kitten?" Isabela asked, leaning forward on crossed arms and looking up at her.

"I found my way back," she said, dropping a ball of thread in front of Varric. "Thank you _so _much, I made it all the way from here to the house and back and only got lost..." She pressed her lips together, looking up at the ceiling, counting on her fingers. "Does it count if I stopped to help a kitten that had gotten all tangled up in it?"

"I don't think so," Hawke said, secretly quite envious of Varric's gift. Lowtown had at least started to make a kind of sense, after a while; Hightown was just a maze, all the landmarks—the Chantry towers, the Viscount's imposing hall—tantalizingly visible, yet impossible to reach. And forget Darktown. The only reason she could find Anders's clinic was because it was right next to her cellars, and she _still _got lost in those.

"Keep the thread, Daisy," Varric said. "I'm in no hurry to have it back."

"Oh, all right then," Merrill said, rolling it under her palm. "Maybe next I'll learn the way to Hawke's house."

"If you figure it out, let me know," Hawke said, ignoring Aveline's half-muffled sigh.

"I will!" Merrill looked between them and their drinks. "Oh, I'm not interrupting, am I? Did you just finish a job?"

"Not at all," Varric said, raising a finger to signal Norah again.

"We're just celebrating," Hawke said.

"Strictly a party," Isabela agreed.

"Hooray," Aveline said, and when Hawke raised an eyebrow at her somewhat sardonic tone, she merely lifted her mug and took a swig.

"A party! How exciting," Merrill said, her feet swinging in the air. Hawke was vaguely aware that the creeping stickiness was slowly gluing her own boots to the floor. "What's the occasion?"

"The viscount officially recognized Aveline's promotion today," Hawke said, beaming again. "We can officially get away with just about anything."

"That's not true and you know it," Aveline said.

"Does that mean you won't be coming with us anymore?" Merrill said, and Hawke found herself blinking away misty eyes at the forlorn note in her voice.

"Of course not," Aveline said. "When my schedule permits, I'll come along. _Someone_ has to keep all of you in line."

"Tragic," Isabela sighed as Merrill's drink arrived.

"I'll be keeping an extra-sharp eye on you," Aveline said.

"Everyone always does." Isabela tightened her crossed arms, amplifying her bosom, and Aveline rolled her eyes.

"Easy, Rivaini," Varric said. "She's only two days into the job. Bit early for having a pirate mistress on the side—although," he said suddenly, fingers disappearing into one of his many pockets and emerging with a scrap of paper, a pen materializing from behind his ear, "that does give me an idea..."

"Oh no you don't," Aveline said. "No sordid stories based on my position."

Varric paused, pen tip just barely scratching the surface. "But you _will_ still pass along the juiciest stories from your beat, right?"

Isabela's eyebrows shot up as Hawke giggled at Aveline's pink cheeks. "I can neither confirm nor deny that possibility," she said, and her face disappeared behind her mug again.

"A budding politician," Varric said, saluting her.

"Is it already time for another round?" Hawke teased, but Aveline surprised her by turning her tankard upside down and signaling Norah herself. This apparently surprised Norah as well, as she tilted her head at Aveline, pointed at herself, and nearly spilled the drinks she was carrying when Aveline nodded.

"You probably ought to tell her she's not guilty of anything," Hawke said.

Aveline shrugged; for all her eager insecurities about her new position, she'd never particularly cared that Lowtown's denizens viewed the guard with more suspicion than anything else. Then again, that had probably been Jeven's fault. Maybe she was looking forward to changing their minds.

"Hawke?" Aveline said, looking concerned. "Can I help you?"

Hawke became aware that she'd been sitting with her chin on her hands, grinning in her friend's direction; caught off-guard, her elbow slipped and she nearly knocked her head on the table. "No," she said, attempting a graceful recovery by resettling in her chair, thwarted by her sticky boots preventing her from crossing her legs with any ease.

"No more than normal," Varric said.

Hawke shot him a glare, but Merrill giggled. "So," Hawke said, attempting to deflect attention from herself, painfully aware of Isabela's grin, "what's new with everyone?"

"Not much," Varric said.

"My mirror's still broken," Merrill said.

"I found the most _amazing_ hat shop in Lowtown," Isabela said.

"That's not new," Hawke said. "You found that last week."

"Did I?" Isabela leaned back, tapping her chin. "Then was this week the stormy sea or the new boy at the Rose? He's _quite_ something, if a pirate mistress isn't your thing..."

"Is he nice?" Merrill asked.

"I thought so," Isabela said. "Only been in Kirkwall a few months, very eager, if you—"

"Hawke?" said an uncertain voice over her head.

"Anders!" she exclaimed, nearly knocking over her chair in her haste to offer it to him. "You made it!"

The healer looked tired, but less gaunt than he had in previous weeks; Hawke hoped that meant her mother's secret food delivery service was working. "You said it was urgent," he said, looking a bit uncertain as she pushed him into his seat.

"Absolutely," she assured him, "be right back," and sauntered over to the bar, stumbling on that one knot in the floor Isabela kept trying to warn her about but leaning against the bar as she recovered her footing in what she thought was a particularly savvy way. "Corff!" she said. "You still have that disgusting watered-down swill?"

The bartender eyed her. "Aye," he said. "But I have it on good authority that you can afford better."

"It's not for me, it's for a friend," she said, waving in the general direction of her table. "Can you tell Norah to keep it handy for the blonde? Not Varric," she said, as Corff's eyebrows shot up, "the _other_ blonde."

"The one who looks like a good puff of air will blow him over?"

Hawke paused, looking back over the shoulder. "Oh no," she said. "It'd take at least two."

"Right," he said, "and here's a bit to start him off."

Hawke beamed at him, collecting the drink and remembering to side-step the tricky floorboard as she made her way back to the table.

"What's this about?" Anders said as she deposited his drink before him with a cheerful thud. Aveline dragged another chair over and Hawke scooted into the corner between them. "No one's been horribly injured, have they?"

"Not at all," she said. "But we're celebrating the new Fereldan captain of the guard, so it seemed like we ought to have all the Fereldans together."

"Celebrating?" Anders said, glancing sideways at Aveline.

"I know," Isabela said. "Who thought the old girl knew how to have fun?"

"Your clinic is safe, Anders," Aveline said, not even deigning to roll her eyes at Isabela. "It'd look suspicious if I asked my men to chase the templars away, but I'll try to keep you updated about their movements." She rubbed one of her temples. "If someone had told me how difficult it was going to be to keep my work separate from the Knight Commander's—"

"The viscount shouldn't let her overstep her boundaries," Anders said.

"One might wish for a slightly more stubborn viscount, then," Aveline said.

"You can't really blame her," Hawke said, "she _does _have apostates running all over her city. But enough of this! We're celebrating!"

"Aveline's promotion," Anders said, "Varric's new book—"

"You have a new book?" Merrill and Hawke said, while the dwarf glared at the healer.

"It's not finished yet," he said. "Blondie here was just helping me with a few facts about the Wardens."

"Not that you took any of them into account," Anders retorted. "I _told_ you they're a dour lot to be making the heroes of your romances—"

"But two of them are King and Queen of Ferelden," Varric said. "_Something_ must've happened there."

"Obviously," Aveline said dryly. "But I don't know if I approve of you taking my sovereigns—former sovereigns," she amended, and paused, and Hawke's mouth twitched in sympathy, "and..._sensationalizing _them."

"You might not approve, but your men do," Varric said. "The proofs I've circulated have done particularly well with them."

"How—"

"The Rose," Isabela supplied, and this time Aveline _did_ roll her eyes. "He promised me twenty percent of the profits."

"Fifteen, Rivaini, and not a cent more."

"So is that what you're celebrating?" Anders asked. "The promise of profit?"

Isabela smiled. "Perhaps I'm just proud the kitten found her way to us."

"Ah," Anders said, eying Merrill. "Wonderful."

"And how's your clinic, Anders?" Merrill said, and Hawke was oddly proud of her for not taking the bait.

"Busy," he said, his tight grimace turning into a smile as he glanced at Hawke. "Hawke's help has been tremendous, though."

"I'm not nearly as good a healer as you," she retorted, and was surprised when he..._blushed_? Oh dear. "I only wish I could do more."

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, as his smile touched the edges of his eyes with something like genuine happiness. "Your mother's donations have gone a long way to improving nutrition among the children. I'm indebted to your whole family."

"Well," Hawke floundered, half her mind occupied with how to pay Isabela back for smirking at her, "we're—we owe you too, for Carver—"

Her throat closed up, and she'd thought she'd _thought _she was able to talk about this now, and her mother's donations were her way of trying to be thankful even when she really blamed him—but at least Carver was _alive_, she told herself firmly, as she'd told her mother, and then Aveline reached over and put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. _Chin up_, she could practically hear her say, and she took a deep breath and lifted her chin and said, "Anyway, it's the least we can do. We were refugees too."

"Aren't we all?" Merrill said, as Isabela pushed a tankard across the table. Hawke accepted gratefully and drank deeply, barely managing not to gag as something much stronger than Corff's normal swill burned its way down her throat. Wincing, she tried to glare at Isabela, who only smirked all the more. She had to admit it worked; Carver was now buried beneath a giggle threatening to burst forth for no reason.

"I'm not," Varric said. "Kirkwall's been my home my entire life. Don't know why I bother with you interlopers." But a grin tugged at his disapproving frown.

"Oh, pooh," Isabela said. "Without us you'd have to rely on your writing for income, and we all know how well _that_ would go."

"Apparently quite well," Merrill said. "I like his stories."

"Yes, but you couldn't afford them," Isabela said.

"Do the Dalish even have currency?" Hawke asked, suddenly curious.

"Not really," Merrill said. "Most everything's held in common, or else we barter. But if you really need something, the Keeper will mediate an exchange. We only deal with money when we deal with shemlen. Which I do all the time, now, and it's..." Her lips twitched in something trying to be a smile, but her voice was wistful. "Fine, I suppose."

"It's all right to hate it," Isabela said lightly. "I hate not having a ship, but I make do. We all do."

She reached across the table and reclaimed her drink, raising it to them before drinking in what Hawke strongly suspected was as much a shield as Aveline's, though it seemed more natural when Isabela did it. Everyone else followed suit, but having lost her drink in the shuffle of seats, Hawke was left to look—anywhere else—she awkwardly strained her neck, trying to catch Norah's eye, when there, at the door, a flash of white?

"Fenris!" she yelped, and this time she _did _overturn her chair as she scrambled up, waving both her arms, vaguely aware of Aveline catching the chair before it crashed completely to the ground. The flash of white turned in her general direction—she has the strongest sense that he was shaking his head at her—but it came closer, aided by the fact that several of the bar's patrons had turned aside in order to see who was causing such a ruckus. And then there he was, _definitely _shaking his head, expression vaguely horrified—but approaching, all the same.

"You came," she said happily, and Aveline offered Hawke's chair to him, but though he took it off her hands, he glanced at Anders and took a step away, shoving it in Hawke's direction.

"Yes," he said gravely, accepting her outstretched hand and giving it a confused shake, withdrawing before she could clasp it with her other hand.

"I thought this was an impromptu drink," Aveline interjected, saving him from further comment as he carefully edged around her chair towards the other side of the table.

"Well, yes," Hawke said. "I mean, it was impromptu when you first told me today would be happening. And then it became...planned."

"I never did understand _what_ you were planning," Fenris said.

"I rarely do," Aveline said.

"And yet here you are," Varric said.

"So are you," Merrill pointed out.

"Yes, but I live here."

"I was _planning_," Hawke said, trying to be indignant but too pleased to pull it off, "to celebrate Aveline's hard work, and how the rest of us helped her, and..." The tears she'd held back for Carver prickled at her eyes again as she beamed at them. "I'm just so _glad_ you're all here."

They stared at her, Isabela shaking her head with a half-smile, Varric completing it with exasperation. Merrill beamed back, while Anders was—awed, maybe? though she couldn't think why, and Aveline's eyes crinkled with fondness and Fenris kept looking at her as if he couldn't believe she was genuine, though she was starting to suspect he _did_believe and couldn't believe himself. She couldn't help twinkling at him; she startled when he gave her the ghost of a smile in return.

"I think," Isabela said, the first to recover, "you need a drink."

"_Not _one of yours," Aveline said, as Hawke sank slowly into her chair, feeling behind her to make sure it was still there. "She has to be able to walk home at the end of the night."

"Surely the guard can escort her?" Varric said.

Aveline shook her head. "I already made the schedule for tonight, and I'm afraid there was simply no room for drunk businesswomen."

"But what about _respectable_ businesswomen?" Hawke said.

"I could walk her home!" Merrill said, then looked at Varric, "that is, if my string is long enough..."

"It better be," Varric said. "I measured the length of Kirkwall and back again. If you manage to go farther than _that_, Daisy, I'm not sure there's much else I can do."

"That's not a challenge, you two," Aveline said as Hawke perked up.

"Hopeless," Fenris said, his expression absolutely neutral as Hawke cut her eyes at him.

"She needs _something_, nonetheless," Isabela said, waving at Nora. "And you, Fenris?"

"I'm fine, thank you."

"Oh, but you must have something," Hawke said. "We have to toast!"

Fenris gave her another one of his long, measuring looks, the ones that were probably meant to indicate incredulity but really just sent shivers up her spine, being the object of those green, green eyes. He glanced away, leaving her bereft, in order to nod up at Nora as she set another drink before Hawke, and she caught a glimpse of Aveline raising her eyebrow and chose to take a long gulp of her ale instead.

"And what are we toasting?" Varric asked as Hawke resurfaced. "Aveline's promotion?"

"Yes!" Hawke said, lifting her tankard. "To Aveline, our new guard captain, may she catch many criminals and spare those like us, who are only trying to get by."

"Thanks, Hawke," Aveline said dubiously.

"To justice for the city of Kirkwall," Anders said, raising his own tankard.

"To the open sea," Isabela said.

Merrill said something in Dalish, with an encouraging smile; Varric lifted his glass of wine and said, "To Hawke," with a twinkle in his eye.

"To Hawke," Fenris echoed, only a little sarcastic, and Hawke nearly spilled her drink in her bemusement.

"To gainful employment," Aveline said, and started to drink, but Hawke crashed her tankard into the guard captain's to cut her off.

"This won't do," she said plaintively. "We're all supposed to toast the same thing. That's the whole point of a toast."

"So what should we toast, then?" Merrill asked.

"Hurry up," Isabela said, as Hawke hesitated, looking around the table, "let's get to the _drinking_."

"All right, all right!" Hawke said, lifting her tankard again, looking around at them, raggedly bound together and somehow hers nonetheless. "To us."

"That's it?" Varric said, though he raised his glass.

"I think it's a lovely toast," Merrill said, clanking her tankard with Hawke's. "To us."

"Warts and all," Aveline added.

"You ought to get those seen about," Isabela said, as she and Anders joined the rest. "I happen to know a very good healer..."

Hawke caught Fenris's eye, and waited, though her tankard was mostly full and kind of heavy and her arm was starting to go numb, until he finally lifted his to join with the rest and said, "To all of us."

"Cheers," she said, and together, they drank.


End file.
